NOTES. 
NOTE ON THE PALAEOZOIC SEEDS, TRIGONOCARPUS AND POLY* 
LOPHOSPERMUM. — In their detailed and very interesting paper on the palaeozoic 
seed-genus Trigonocarpus \ Dr. Scott and Mr. Maslen include a description of a new 
species with which they have done me the honour to associate my name. The chief 
interest attaching to the still imperfectly known T. Oliveri depends on the resemblance 
which it presents to the Polylophospermum stephanense of Brongniart. 
The particular feature which the authors find these two seeds to possess in 
common is an inverted chalazal cup or circular ridge at the base, enclosing the stalk 
by which the seed must have been attached to the structure which bore it. 
My excuse for writing the present note, before the authors have completed their 
labours, is to mention a character, hitherto undescribed, in which Polylophospermum 
approaches the type-species Trigonocarpus Parkinsoni ( Trigonocarpon olivaeforme ), 
a character that may prove of some taxonomic importance when the relations of 
these seeds are considered. 
Through the courtesy of Professor E. Bureau of the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle 
it was possible, during the course of a visit to Paris in April, 1905, to consult the 
fossil slides in the collection of the late Monsieur Renault. 
Among these were several sections of Polylophospermum , which contribute one 
or two points hitherto unrecorded. Transverse sections across the body of the seed 
show the hexagonal outline, familiarized by Brongniart’s original sketch 2 , with six 
principal acute ridges along the salient angles of the sclerotesta, and a like number 
of lower and less acute secondary ribs on the flat, prismatic faces. In several of 
these specimens considerable traces of sarcotesta may be recognized, extending both 
between the ribs and also beyond them ; whilst, embedded in the tissue of the sarco- 
testa, immediately outside the points of the secondary ribs, little vascular bundles are 
found to occur. In some cases these bundles are distorted and flattened in the 
tangential plane, but their presence in the position described was confirmed in a 
sufficient number of cases to remove all reasonable doubt as to the accuracy of the 
observation. On the other hand, no bundles were detected in the sarcotesta in the 
neighbourhood of the principal ridges. 
These facts are epitomized in Fig. t, a, which is based primarily on the prepara- 
tion numbered 9306 3 . Another preparation from the same series contained a longi- 
tudinal section of the chalazal end of a seed showing one of these vascular bundles 
running in the sarcotesta for a distance of about 5 mm. (Fig. 1, b , v.b). 
From these observations it would appear that P olylophospermum stephanense pos- 
sessed a sarcotestal vascular system consisting of bundles running in the same radii 
as the secondary ridges ; on the other hand, the principal ridges seem to have been 
unaccompanied by bundles. 
1 Ann. of Bot., vol. xxi, p. 89. 
2 A. Brongniart, Rech. sur les graines foss. silicifiees, PI, C, Fig. 7. 
3 Other preparations illustrating the point are 9315, 9317. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXI. No. LXXXII. April, 1907.] 
